I’m posting this partly because I need to test our SoundCloud integration since they changed their code, and also because it’s a quirky, funky, stripped down, freaking great record, and how cool is it that you can stream the whole thing through SoundCloud?

Obdicut (Now with 2% less brain)re: #676 Killgore Trout What right to jury of your peers do you think is written into the Constitution, Killgore? ... There's also the Supreme Court case that specifically decided excluding people on the grounds of race wasn't Constitutional. en.wikipedia.org ...

When breitbart.com’s Ben Shapiro posted his now-infamous fake story about Chuck Hagel and “Friends of Hamas,” it’s noteworthy that the entire right wing media machine immediately jumped on the story and spread it far and wide. It’s difficult to find a right wing website that didn’t run the story; this is how they roll, with nearly instant unison parroting of stories that advance the agenda, whether obviously fake or not.

A week or so ago, Capitol Hill was swirling with rumors that Hagel might have been associated with a group called Friends of Hamas. These rumors were mentioned in this space (albeit conditionally and with grains of salt). It turns out that the group doesn’t exist and the rumor was based on a hypothetical question that then spread in a classic Washington game of telephone, as reported here.

This might seem like semi-responsible journalism, but watch: the next time one of these fake outrages floats by, they’ll jump aboard as if this never happened.

UPDATE at 2/20/13 12:45:06 pm

Since Lowry said in his post that the National Review “mentioned” the rumors “conditionally and with grains of salt,” let’s take a look at the words that actually appeared on their site. Call it “fact-checking,” if you will.

As John notes, Ben Shapiro has reported at the Breitbart site Big Peace that one of Hagel’s funding sources is a group purportedly called “Friends of Hamas.” That might make someone a good fit for president of Egypt, prime minister of Turkey, or any number of advisory posts on the White House staff. But given that being a “friend of Hamas” — at least the kind of friend who provides material support to that terrorist organization — is a crime in the United States, it may not be quite what the Senate is looking for in a secretary of defense.

How is that “conditional?” Is the word “purportedly” supposed to give them an out, even though the rest of the paragraph quite clearly treats it as a fact?

Rumors abound on Capitol Hill that a full disclosure of Hagel’s professional ties would reveal financial relationships with a number of “unsavory” groups, including one purportedly called “Friends of Hamas.” The GOP aide said it was “noteworthy” that the White House has yet to deny the association. “Maybe it’s not true, but why not provide a list of groups he spoke to and remove all doubt?” the aide said.

There’s that “purportedly” again, followed by dark insinuations that the White House hasn’t denied the accusation.

Pretty obviously, the National Review’s writers pushed this story as factual, and they did much more than simply “mention” it — and Lowry’s attempt to picture it as “conditional” is just as ridiculous as the fake story itself.

On Feb. 6, I called a Republican aide on Capitol Hill with a question: Did Hagel’s Senate critics know of controversial groups that he had addressed?

Hagel was in hot water for alleged hostility to Israel. So, I asked my source, had Hagel given a speech to, say, the “Junior League of Hezbollah, in France”? And: What about “Friends of Hamas”?

The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed — let alone that a former senator would speak to them.

Friedman wasn’t counting on the incredibly obsessed Breitbrats, for whom journalism is a retreating speck in the rear view mirror.

How do you imagine Ben Shapiro will react to the news that his bombshell exclusive story was a ludicrous fraud?

By raging at Friedman and calling him a “hack” and a member of the “Obama media,” of course! In the right wing universe, no mistakes are ever acknowledged, even when everyone can see the egg all over your face.

Oh really, well my source says that Ben Shapiro is cynical charlatan who doesn’t care how ridiculous he looks in the eyes of his peers, as long as the checks keep clearing.

Ben, maybe this works for now (I’m sure you’ve got a family to feed)… but eventually, I recommend you try actual journalism. You know, the kind where you ask the question “Is this actually true?” then you try to answer that question honestly and in good faith. Radical, I know. And not much money in it. But you’d be doing a good thing. Does that appeal to you? Probably not, right?

[…]

Wasn’t too long ago that Breitbart was parading little Ben out as the new braintrust, after letting him loose on the lamestream media to take on big phonies like Piers Morgan. Lol, that house of cards collapsed pretty swiftly.

[…]

I’m pleased to see how many commenters are beating up on Shapiro. I’m having fun too.

But we all need to remember that “facts and truth” isn’t the goal of Breitbart articles. If a lie serves their ideology then lie they will.

Few on the right will hold Shapiro in less regard for his dishonesty, they might hold him in less regard though because he wasn’t clever enough to hide it.

[…]

The ability to mock someone in real time while they double down on their stupidity has to be one of the greatest benefits of the internet. Right, Manti Shapiro?

[…]

It’s always been obvious that Shapiro isn’t a journalist, now it’s clear he’s an inept blogger.

[…]

As long as Shapiro is the Editor on this site, it will never gain credibility.

What effect will this have on breitbart.com’s credibility among right wingers? None. It’s not about credibility to the right, it’s about smearing their opponents with everything they can find, true or not, accurate or not.

It’s very possible that some Republican staffer deliberately pushed this fake story out to Ben Shapiro and breitbart.com, because they knew the brats have no standards and would immediately run with it. Then they could use it as a source for their attacks on Hagel.

labman57Disinformation 101: conservative pundits and politicians take turns making crap up and then proceed to cite each other ("There are stories out there that blah, blah, blah occurred/was said/etc.") as justification for propagating the fallacious stories. This is what happens ...

This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go.

Or... you can just click this button to open the Pages posting window right away.

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